Summary

  • The Egger plant has a new 48m-long, 2.6m-wide ContiRoll production line.
  • Egger currently uses approximately 30% of recycled wood, 40% of sawmill products such as chips and sawdust, and 30% roundwood.
  • Egger has invested £500,000 in a new visitor design facility at Hexham.

A recent study by various forest industry stakeholders in the Tynedale area of Northumberland suggested that, at some time in the future, it would make sense for an ‘industry cluster’ to be developed around Egger’s chipboard plant at Hexham.

Any such cluster could include a sawmill to process timber to help feed Egger’s new state-of-the art £110m investment on the site and maintain the local nature of the raw material supply.

The company currently uses approximately 30% recycled wood, 40% sawmill products such as chips and sawdust, and 30% roundwood. Around 100,000 wet tonnes of Forest Stewardship Council-certified roundwood a year are delivered to the plant from Kielder Forest harvesting sites, supplied by the Forestry Commission, Euroforest and Egger’s own harvesting operations. This contributes around 16 of the average 30 loads of roundwood arriving at Egger daily.

“For every tonne of wood that comes over the weighbridge we get half a tonne of material – the rest of it is water, so the less distance you have to take it the better. At present the wood supply mainly comes from a 50-80 mile radius, but that may have to be increased,” said Bob Livesey, joint managing director (commercial) at Hexham.

Production line

Central to investment at the plant has been a new 48m-long, 2.6m-wide ContiRoll production line, plus the installation of the latest technology in many areas of the plant and extensive environmental equipment, some of which is unique to Egger.

Construction began in April last year and the first board came off the ContiRoll chipboard press in April this year, with 24/7 production swiftly achieved. Full commissioning of the new plant and supporting infrastructure is due by September.

Mr Livesey said the quick move to 24-hour production and the quality of the board manufactured surpassed expectations well ahead of schedule. The new line will start to run at full production speed in the autumn, once the bedding-in process is complete.

The ContiRoll facility, which replaces two outdated flat press production lines, will enable the company to improve quality, increase efficiency and improve the cost-to-quality ratio. “With rapidly increasing raw material costs, it is important for both ourselves and our customers that we do everything possible to minimise the impact these significant cost rises have on the market without impacting on quality, therefore helping maintain our customers’ market competitiveness,” said Mr Livesey.

European presence

Egger was founded in 1961 at St Johann in the Austrian Tyrol, and still has its headquarters there today. With 15 production sites in five European countries, it is one of the largest manufacturers of chipboard, MDF boards, OSB boards and finished timber materials in the world.

Egger employs more than 5,000 people, including around 500 in the UK, mainly at Hexham, where the company acquired the former Weyroc factory in 1984 and started producing chipboard. Prior to the current round of investment, £70m had been invested in developing the Hexham site.

If the Hexham site had not been further developed now, its future would have been unsustainable, said Mr Livesey. An energy plant and chipboard facility make up phase one, with further phases likely in the future. Around 30 acres of land have been acquired – with more still available – and the site now totals some 71 acres.

The massive investment is designed to secure the company’s future for the next 25 years. “This is a very important time for the whole Egger group. The industry has gone through a difficult period over the past few years. Cost has been an issue in terms of energy, and timber and its availability – plus being able to get material at the right price. We are still going through that process,” said Mr Livesey.

UK manufacturing sites

With a turnover of £120m, Egger UK Holdings now consists of two manufacturing sites – Egger (UK) Ltd at Hexham and Egger Barony in Scotland where 400,000m3 of rawboard products are produced annually. Other companies within the holding company are Campact, which produces resin products, Egger Forestry which manages and harvests around one million tonnes of timber a year, and timber recycling company Timberpak which supplies Egger with around 50% of its recycled requirement.

In its role as a consultant for customers in terms of style, Egger has also invested £500,000 in a new visitor design facility at Hexham where hundreds of companies have already visited for presentations on the company’s take on the latest trends.

According to Egger marketing manager Nick McClughin, bright colours are beginning to make a comeback – with colours for 2007 ranging from avocado green and aubergine to bright white. “We are often working on décor and colour developments up to two years in advance of what consumers will be choosing and we look very closely at what a number of key sectors are doing, for instance the car industry. We also use colour forecasters to predict trends and currently texture and exotic woods are a big focus,” he said.

And Egger says that chipboard is winning against solid wood, especially in kitchens. It maintains that consumers are opting for simpler design, like ‘slab’ doors and teaming them with more expensive top of the range appliances to give a contemporary look.

Egger believes the future will present new challenges as it works to “leverage value” for customers. “Chipboard manufacturers will need to develop more into component manufacturers rather than just as suppliers of MFC panels. We would not want to undermine our customers – but we can help them by taking that process on,” said Mr Livesey.